Dear Mom,
Tudo Bem?!?
I love you so much! I hope that as my mother you’re able to read my hand-writing. If not, maybe your experience as an elementary school teacher will help you.
First of all, we only have 30 minutes to email time a week! That includes reading and sending. It takes me about that long just to read them! I’ve gotten 9 letters and a package in my six days of being here. That’s about 8 more than anyone else. So thank you for making me the most envied missionary in my district! Getting just one letter can turn a long, down-trodden day into an amazing, uplifting one! If there is sunshine in my soul (which of course there always is) then a letter is like a magnifying glass. Victoria used this thing called “dearelder.com”. I guess it’s like you send an email to the MTC and they print it off and give it to me. While I’m here in the MTC, it’s free and far superior to emails or letters so use it! Please call Victoria and tell her to post something about it on my facebook. Also, if you didn’t get the message, mail is awesome so write and encourage others to write FREQUENTLY!!!
In my district there are twelve missionaries (all Elders) and half of us are going to Recife. Shawn Fogleman, *AHEM*, Elder Fogleman is also in my district. My companion is Elder Doyle. He is a very neat guy with a strong testimony. We were truly inspired to be companions! We get along better than maybe anyone else in the district. I am the Senior companion and he is the District Leader. We are doing our best to inspire and uplift the rest of our district. He is from Sherwood, Oregon (just south of Portland) and comes from an awesome LDS family. I love this kid already!
We got to watch General Conference in the gym here at the MTC. It was great! I’ve never taken so many notes before! Wasn’t President Uchtdorf’s talk on Saturday morning great?! There were great “oooos” and “ahhhs” at the announcement of the second Provo Temple. I tried my hardest but with the taxing MTC schedule I just couldn’t help falling asleep once or twice.
There’s so much to do here and so little time to do it. They keep us BUSY and FULL. I’ve never eaten so much in my life. And the eating times are so awkward. Sometimes we’ll have meals just two hours apart and sometimes eight hours apart. But boy howdy! When we have meals, WE HAVE MEALS. They tried to make chicken with creamy stuff but they failed epically. I thought I’d love the unlimited cereal bar but it’s all off-brands! I mean, what’s up with that?! But anywho . . .
I’m also only allowed to write letters on P-day and when most of the day is taken up by the Temple and laundry, it doesn’t make for a long letter writing experience.
Most of our day is learning Gospel stuff in Portuguese. Our teacher only speaks in Portuguese, and I mean No English. We also have lots of Personal Study Time. I’m definitely struggling with the language; others are learning much faster than me. But I’m still surprised with how much I have learned. I can understand it very well. We’re teaching an “investigator” named Junior. He’s from Brazil and going to BYU. He is a very good actor. He apparently doesn’t know English and let’s fact it, my companion and I don’t really know Portuguese. This makes for very . . . interesting . . . lessons. We just hope the Spirit is teaching him in Portuguese because I’m pretty sure he hasn’t understood anything we’ve tried to say in it.
We just had one member of our district get his visa and take off to Brazil today. His companion is joining my companionship so we’ll have a trio. We went to the Temple today; it was awesome.
The best part of the day is gym time. I’ve become a bit of a 4-square legend here. Thank goodness I worked at Neal Dow! There’s also a lot of volleyball and basketball.
There so SO many Sister Missionaries here! They are everywhere! Most of them are absolutely awesome too! I would encourage every woman of the church to serve a mission because the sisters definitely keep us Elders from getting too crazy.
On Sunday I thought I was going to snap and stat punching people because of the monotony of being here. But yesterday was certainly a blessing and calmed me down. I got my glasses (THANK YOU!!!) and 7 letters (THANK YOU!!!) and got to go on a field trip! Elder Doyle surprised me with a trip to the Provo Medical Center. He had to get his eyes checked or something lame like that but it meant two hours off campus! We were in a missionary shuttle for about 30 minutes and in the doctor’s office for another 30 minutes which means we tasted sweet freedom for a whole hour! We contacted lots of people while waiting for our ride. We also planned our second lesson with Junior. (We challenged him to baptism. He said it was too soon but that he’d prepare.) The field trip was definitely amazing. Talking and haring our spirits with real people!
Please share this letter with everyone. Also, call Victoria and share it with her or email it to her or something. Please Please Please Please Please PLEASE send me a couple more P-day shirts like the purple Funland one and send me another pair of gym shorts and a pillow case. (ASAP!) I SO do not have enough regular clothes for pj’s, gym time every day, and P-day clothes!!! Also, the bad weather has already started here! I’ll tell you when it starts snowing, I might need a jacket or something . . . By the way, we just had an Elder in our branch who was supposed to go to Brazil get permanently reassigned to Montana due to visa complications. And I’ve heard that’s not a too rare thing either. Keep your fingers crossed that that doesn’t happen to me I guess! There are over 230 missionaries here waiting for visas to go to Brazil. Crazy huh? Anywho . . .
I love you guys a ton! I’m already excited to see you guys again! I really do love all of you! Please be sure to share this with the Mark’s, Courtney, Kari, Kiersten, Jill, Jonathan, Casey, Justin, Grandma, and LaDawn and anyone else you want to. Tell them all that I love and miss them. And when you call Victoria tell her that I love her too! Also, can you find Elder Carr’s contact info for me? Thank you so much for everything mom! I hope your job is going well! I hope my service is blessing you! Boa Sorte!!
Eu seu que Jesus Cristo e nossos Salvador e Redentor! O Livro de Mormon e verdedeiro!
Con Amor,
Elder Frazer
P.S. Also a spiral-bound notebook if you can.
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